Well, the search marketing industry was mildly rocked this week by the news[1] that the much-beloved Vanessa Fox will be leaving Google where she was something of a maven, spokesperson, and technical evangelista for some years. The news has left me rather verklempt[2]! I can’t help but suppose that we’ll now all get to see her less or not at all in her new role working for the real estate website, Zillow[3].

I’ll be missing her Sandman[4] t-shirts and Buffy references at the conferences, and I fear the subject matter will end up being a lot drier overall for her lack.

Though I don’t know that she’d need any SEO help, I must say that I happen to know a thing or two about local search optimization, if she would like to call me in for advice at Zillow! 😉

In appreciation for Vanessa, with warmest regards, here’s a little list I composed of the Top Ten Reasons Vanessa Left Google:

10. Vanessa got tired of being stalked by all the odd SEO geeks out there, like the strange man in the long black coat who starts hovering around behind her three-quarters of the way through this video interview[5] between her and Rand[6].

9. Vanessa began to realize that Google is actually The Borg[7], and she decided to go through the painful surgeries necessary to divest herself from the hive-mind[8].

8. Vanessa resigned after the Google Image Search team refused to give her top ranking for her blog[9]‘s keywords “Vanessa Fox Nude[10]“. (WARNING: link into Google Image Search for “vanessa fox nude” is NOT work-safe unless you have Strict SafeSearch enabled in your Google preference settings!)

7. Though generally a secret, Vanessa’s moonlighting job kicking the butt of Black-Hat SEO Vampires was leaving her way too tired for the day job on Webmaster Central. Those Black-Hat SEO Vampires really suck the link-juice outta stuff! (Vanessa, was this why you didn’t make it to our morning panel session on Images & Search[11] at the NYC SES this Spring?!? Also, btw – don’t we have Dave Naylor[12] to thank for the name of Vanessa’s blog? Starting to think Dave may’ve played “Xander” to Vanessa’s “Buffy”… or maybe Dave as “Spike” would be more apt?)

[13] 7 steps to writing better spam email (or what to do if you’ve got an overstock of viagra): http://www.vanessafoxnude.com/2007/05/31/7-steps-to-writing-better-spam-email-or-what-to-do-if-youve-got-an-overstock-of-viagra/